Tuesday, November 9, 2010

The specialist tradecraft developed for Central Intelligence Agency personnel assigned to the Soviet Union. Officers who underwent the dedicated countersurveillance course, run by Jack Platt, were known as “pipeliners.” One graduate of the course, Edward Lee Howard, is known to have compromised many of the techniques taught in it. Because of the intensity of surveillance conducted against all suspect foreigners during the Cold War, most Soviet sources were run in the more relaxed security environments of third countries, obliging agents in Moscow to leave innocuous “sign-of-life” signals to indicate their continued freedom and future travel plans.